Two new Nordic Berlin routes fill vacuum

easyJet is filling many holes left by Air Berlin, launching routes from Germany to a number of Scandinavian airports.

Budget airline easyJet will debut at Oslo Gardermoen in August and return to Gothenburg with two routes to its major new base at Berlin Tegel. This is in addition to earlier announcements about new routes to Copenhagen, Stockholm, Helsinki and others.

As it continues to fill the vacuum left by the bankruptcy of Air Berlin last October, it has now announced planned service expansion from Tegel for the summer schedules, including the launch of 23 routes, while increasing capacity on five out of 19 other routes already opened or planned.

Oslo and Gothenburg are among the latest set of airports to benefit from easyJet acquiring 25 Airbus aircraft and landing slots from Air Berlin.

The new daily routes to Oslo and Gothenburg will open on August 3 and 5, respectively. It will be easyJet’s first route to Oslo, but the company will be competing directly on the route with SAS, while Norwegian flies between Oslo and Berlin Schönefeld.

Taking Berlin
The 21 other new Berlin Tegel routes are mostly to the south, to Portugal, Spain, France, Greece, Serbia and Croatia. But the company also opens a German domestic route to Cologne with up to five daily flights.

easyJet has previously used Berlin Schönefeld exclusively but has chosen now to operate from both of the German capital’s busy airports after Air Berlin disappeared, as the bankrupt airline had a great deal of traffic to and from Tegel, its departure leaving a large gap in the market.

Copenhagen, Stockholm, Helsinki too
The low-cost carrier’s 19 other Tegel routes (13 already opened, six planned) include one to Copenhagen, which opened on January 5 with two daily departures in parallel to its existing CPH service from Schönefeld.

On March 25, it will schedule up to three daily departures between Berlin Tegel and Copenhagen, resulting in 37 weekly flights in each direction between the two Berlin airports and the Danish capital.

Other new easyJet routes from Berlin Tegel include Helsinki and Stockholm, the latter opening on March 1 with two daily flights.